SEO is “not the answer anymore” as publishers risk falling behind if they don’t understand how their content is used and surfaced by LLMs, according to Axios publisher Nicholas Johnston.
Johnston has shared why publishers need to understand how AI tools find and surface their journalism, and how this differs from SEO, plus why Axios’ editorial writing style could help maximise its chances of being surfaced in answers from the likes of ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity.
In January 2025 Axios signed a three-year deal with OpenAI, meaning its journalism appears in ChatGPT results with attribution and links. The deal, which Axios access to OpenAI tech, has also been cited as a direct reason for the expansion of Axios Local into nine new communities (totalling 43) this year.
[Read more: Axios Local ramps up expansion again as part of ‘path to profitability’]
How should publishers approach a relationship with LLMs?
Axios CEO Jim VandeHei said earlier this year the publisher was in talks to negotiate more content licensing deals.
Johnston told Press Gazette: “It’s very standard to go to them and be like, ‘Well, if you’re reading our content, or training on our content, or citing our content, we want to be linked, we want to be compensated.’”
He added: “When people ask what is happening in the Middle East or what’s happening in my community, however they engage with these robots in the future, I want the answer to be ‘this is what Axios says’.”
Johnston said publishers need to “try and learn where you show up”, or their Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) visibility in other words. He said this data could be shared by the LLMs themselves, or consulting companies and PR firms that are doing their own research.
“Millions and millions of people, if not already, will soon learn about their community, learn about the topics we cover through their interaction with LLMs,” he said, “and so I should be aware of how they’re doing that the same way I was aware of how SEO works and how SEO would prioritise, or in our case, deprioritise us because of our format.
“Interestingly, for GEO, the flip side might be true in that the robots would prefer it to be shorter and more efficient than longer and boring.”
What is Axios doing well when it comes to being cited and surfaced by LLMs?
The Axios approach to writing is known as Smart Brevity, foregoing complex language or long articles. The aim is that content is easy to read and understand at speed.
“We’ve been maniacal for ten years about how to structure information and deliver it efficiently to humans,” said Johnston. “We should also think about how to make it easy to ingest and consume by the LLMs.”
He added: “We just want to get the reader smarter, faster, on the topic, strip away all the extraneous things about that, and I think that laser focus on how best to serve the human reader we’re now seeing serves robot readers as well.”
What are three things a publisher should do to maximise its value in AI search?
Learning about their GEO visibility is an essential place to start for a publisher, Johnston said.
“Figure out where you stand. This is a mystery to a lot of people.”
Once a publisher has this baseline, they should try to figure out “why are we where we are”, he added.
“Like what might be driving our placement on one LLM versus another, or on one topic… We don’t know why they reach that conclusion. But we should think about it and try to learn lessons from that.”
Then it is time to develop a strategy for it.
“What are your tools for audience acquisition right now? If your tools for audience acquisition… is SEO, I don’t need to tell you that you’re in trouble. The data is in front of you…
“What will your monetisation strategy be? That might be calling up the LLMs where you show up very well, and being like ‘there should be a financial arrangement here’.”
What should publishers be negotiating for in licensing deals?
“I think you should look for value… would it be more valuable for you to get a nickel every time they source you, or is it more valuable for you for the [LLM] to say your name when they source you?” said Johnston.
“It might be different for every other different publisher. If you have a really robust paid subscription business, a nickel from a mention isn’t nearly as valuable as something that will provide audience acquisition, like the way to drive someone to your product.
“The way we interact with audiences is going away, and so you should go figure out what that next way is, and how you can build a media business on that.”
How valuable is a citation if it doesn’t produce a click?
“The click is more valuable, of course, but people don’t click, and I thought about that years ago when I built newsletter products that didn’t require the click,” said Johnston, adding it was better to monetise the newsletter than the click to the website from the newsletter.
Johnston added that if a reader sees a particular publisher cited enough on LLMs, they may think they should “have a relationship with that company and sign up for their newsletters or go to their website and like buy a subscription”.
What topics are more financially valuable on LLMs?
Johnston said that “human journalism” is the most worthy content for LLMs – “what the robots cannot find anywhere else from other robots”.
He added that SEO pieces providing information already out there will not be valuable to LLMs, for instance what time the Super Bowl starts or public source data.
“But then what the robots can’t do is go hang out at Congress and ask a member of the Senate what’s in the bill… They can’t go to a restaurant and eat the taco and think, ‘this is good’. And so that element of human-created data… can become incredibly valuable in a world where so much else is done by robots.”
What are the pitfalls around LLM monetisation right now?
“You should avoid pretending the world isn’t changing,” Johnston said.
He added a lot of legacy publishers that did not understand how digital would impact their relationship with readers went out of business.
“I would say this is a similar moment, and it’ll be much, much faster,” he said.
“I would advise developing a theory of the case on your journalism, why it matters, why it’s useful to readers, and how it can and could be monetised in the future, and then using that to engage with this new information ecosystem.”
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